February 1, 2017

We went to the temple this week, I don't remember what I already told you about that but it was way cool. It was cool to walk into the celestial room and see all the worthy missionaries asking for guidance from the Lord. Plus I did it in all Spanish and saw a video I've never seen before which was cool. Today was Sunday, and Sundays in the CCM are the best. We met with presidente machado (branch president) and he is so loving and awesome. Here's my favorite quotes from church today "the sin of omission, you can lock yourself in a box and say you lived a perfect life but you are committing the sin of omission, we are called to be in the world and to lift and serve and edify those around us. By doing nothing we might as well be doing wrong 'to whom much is given, much is required'" and "we don't magnify the priesthood, the priesthood is already magnificent, we magnify the service, we magnify the work, and the priesthood will magnify us." Also, a spiderman quote applied to the sin of omission, "when you can do what we can, it's our fault when people get hurt" and it's talking about superheroes, but knowing what we know, it is on our heads when we don't share the gospel. We have to have faith and not be afraid because fear is selfish and prideful and fear is the opposite of faith. Also, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass", we are small and simple things. Sorry for being all weird and spiritual, I also ate like 5 corn dogs and instant mashed potatoes for dinner. I ate lunch with Presidente Bennette (CCM president) on Saturday and he hit me with all bunches of knowledge, we're getting to know each other because he really likes our district and we always ask him questions about how to be better missionaries, Saturdayy I asked him how to hit the ground running out of the MTC and he said  "The MTC isn't a landing pad, it's a launch pad into our missions which is a launch pad for our lives, the moon is 284000 miles from Earth, but they use 75% of their fuel in the first 25 miles, we need to go balls to the wall until we break out of the atmosphere and defy gravity." And then keep going hard because you are not saved until you have stayed faithful your whole life. Our mission doesn't end until we are dead and safely buried in our coffins. That last part is an elder eves quote, he's a senior missionary that works here. I also asked Presidente Bennette on Saturday what good missionaries have in common and he says they don't just believe the principle, they internalize it. He said "do you believe in Christ or do you believe Christ. It's easy to believe hell died on the cross and Yada Yada, but do you truly believe in your heart the words of Christ and that he came to the earth to save you specifically. Do you believe that in and through only Christ that your investigators change their lives and endure to the end. Today was good, I don't know anything noteworthy that happened, we went and helped some random new district and they were really obnoxious and didn't want us to teach them, every time we would try to correct them they would argue with us so we left. Hermano Barroterán left today to go to tijuana to be with his fiance, it was pretty sad and we sang "para siempre dios este con voz". We are about to put 16 people on elder starnes bed so that's cool. We played beach volleyball today and that was fun I guess, and then elder Schmidts kicked the volleyball on the roof. Today I played soccer with Latinos FINALLY and it was the most fun I've had since I've been here, it was awesome. They were so good but not way better so it was perfect. I can't wait to get in the field and play all the time with guadalajarensos  (that's not actually what they're called) we had pizza tonight and that was neat but I only got 3 pieces because we ran out.
 Also, I finished my lesson with one of our investigators and walked outside because it was raining and I saw these Hermanas with luggage so me and Elder koyle started talking to them and next thing you know she says "hey I have your retainer" we were the first people they talked to when they got here, it was awesome. Tender mercies :D Our district had a really good discussion today about how to internalize commandments and how to teach it to our kids and internalize it and be converted to Christ and not to the church. We started meditating last night and its weird but refreshing. What's going on in your neck of the woods?